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(Credit: IMCCE-Observatoire de Paris/CNRS/Y.Gominet, B. Carry)

Dwarf planet Ceres may be home to alien life

Scientists have detected water on Ceres, a dwarf planet residing in our solar system’s asteroid belt.

The Herschel Telescope detected water vapor spouting from Ceres. According to Michael Küppers of the European Space Agency, “This is the first clear-cut detection of water in the asteroid belt.” The Weather Channel explains that scientists have suspected the presence of substantial water on Ceres for decades. Those suspicions haven’t been confirmed until now.

The dwarf planet Ceres. (Credit: NASA/ESA)

The dwarf planet Ceres. (Credit: NASA/ESA)

Researchers postulate that when Ceres moves closer to the sun, part of its icy surface is melted. And according to Popular Science, if all this ice were melted, “it would be more fresh water than is available on all of Earth.”

Marc Rayman of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory told Reuters, “One of the things that’s intriguing here is the possibility of there being liquid water as opposed to ice . . . Certainly all life that we know depends on water. And so this is part of the larger question of where can life exist.” But Rayman says it is premature to declare Ceres a potential habitable environment for alien life. Rayman continued, “There’s a lot more than just water that’s required for life. And whether Ceres has those other ingredients – which include, for example, a source of energy and all of the nutrients that life requires, the rest of the chemistry – it’s too early to say.”

NASA’s space probe Dawn is scheduled to take a closer look the surface of Ceres in the spring of 2015.

About Jason McClellan

Jason McClellan is a UFO journalist and the producer/co-host of the web series Spacing Out! He is also the web content manager and staff writer for OpenMinds.tv, and a co-organizer and technical producer of the International UFO Congress. As a founding member of Open Minds, Jason served as a writer and editor for the now defunct Open Minds magazine. He has appeared on Syfy, NatGeo, and, most recently, he co-starred on H2's Hangar 1: The UFO Files. ------ Follow Jason on Twitter @acecentric and subscribe to Jason's updates on Facebook.

One comment

  1. Great article Jason. Wouldn’t it be a huge leap for mankind to discover life, possible alien to our nature, so close to home here on planet Earth? I believe we will discover a form of life on one of Jupiter’s moons in the coming decades. What do you think?

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